


follow you down

by lacquer



Series: love + fear [3]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Magic, Ocean, Presumed Dead, Rescue Missions, is about where we're at, junhui/the ocean/minghao, just a little, lost at sea, one (1) exo cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:24:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22540180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacquer/pseuds/lacquer
Summary: During times like these—watching Minghao leave on his month long research expeditions—he sometimes thinks he should be waving a handkerchief farewell, as if the year were 1905 instead of 2019. A square of silk, fluttering from the dock. A white flag.I surrender you to the sea.
Relationships: Wen Jun Hui | Jun/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Series: love + fear [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1662301
Comments: 32
Kudos: 132
Collections: WIP OLYMPICS: WINTER 2019/20





	follow you down

**Author's Note:**

> hiiiiii it's me, back for some february nonsense! in spirit this is dedicated to len, for suggesting 8juns. i'm not sure she wants this in her gifts tab, but len these are your 8juns <333
> 
> this fic is written to marina's "end of the earth" (where the title comes from as well) which marks the third fic i've set to a song off of love + fear. if you know how i can stop writing fic to marina songs, please tell me it would be appreciated
> 
> this story takes a majority of its inspiration from the lines "If we're torn apart then I won't let go/ 'Cause wherever we are, it feels like home/ And I'll love you 'till the end/ I'll love you 'till the end". I've always seen end of the earth as a kind of complicated song, and I'm not sure this fic really encapsulates my entire set of feelings on it. on the other hand, I haven't seen the ocean in going on half a year now, and it's starting to show, so this is the end result!
> 
> there are some themes of mourning someone you're not quite sure is dead, and of grief, but this fic is pretty short and ends on a happy note, so I don't see the need to warn for anything too specific. enjoy?

_“The ocean rises, salt as unshed tears.”_

-May Sarton, “Of Molluscs”

Minghao’s ship slips over the horizon like he’s falling off the edge of the world. Junhui is standing on the docks, watching him go. The ocean air kisses his cheeks, just as tenderly as his husband had, mere hours ago. 

Junhui breathes in deep, closes his eyes. Dawn light filters through his eyelids gently, a reminder that the morning is breathing in as well.

During times like these—watching Minghao leave on his month long research expeditions—he sometimes thinks he should be waving a handkerchief farewell, as if the year were 1905 instead of 2019. A square of silk, fluttering from the dock. A white flag. 

_I surrender you to the sea._

Junhui has always known that by marrying Minghao he was marrying the water as well. When Minghao returns from his trips across the ocean, it is always with another lover on his lips. And every time, Junhui kisses away the saline, welcomes him home with words and body, until all the salt that lies between them is their own. 

He takes another breath and turns away. Minghao’s ship is past the horizon, and Junhui has work to do. Slowly, he walks back to their little house on the cliffs and gets ready to face the day alone.

\--

Three weeks later, a storm is rattling the walls of his house like an angry god. Rain pounds onto the cliffs, waves crashing onto the rocks below like canon fire. Junhui can’t tell if it’s day or night anymore, the whole sky drenched in dark clouds. The one time he had stepped outside to take in Minghao’s flower pots, the air had been so thick with water he had swum instead of walked.

In the midst of this cacophony, his laptop pings with an email. 

It’s not an unusual occurrence. While Minghao makes a living studying the ocean—asking her questions and publishing her answers—Junhui stays home most days, head turned to a keyboard. Four years spent at university had netted him an economics degree and a job moving very big numbers for very important men entire countries away. 

Right now though, Junhui is curled up in one of Minghao’s sweatshirts, towel over his hair to stop rainwater from getting on the couch. By his side, their cat, Minnow, is curled into his hipbone, shivering every time the house shakes. 

Junhui reaches for his laptop, dislodging her a little. She makes a _mrrp_ of distress, and he runs a hand down her back. “Sorry little fish, go to sleep. The storm will pass soon.” 

Minnow doesn’t seem convinced, ears twitching at every little noise. She stays put though. Whenever Minghao is gone, Minnow sticks by him like she knows he needs the comfort. Junhui thinks it’s also because she needs some too.

Without taking a hand off of Minnow, Jun opens his laptop, typing in his password one-handed. It’s a little awkward, but he manages pulling up his email with no other difficulties. Surprisingly, it’s not his business email but rather his personal one that has something new in it.

The title is simple, reading _Sorry about your loss._ It’s from one of his coworkers, which is strange. The sender, Joshua Hong, works from their Korean location, and Junhui has known him for a little more than a year. They’re not distant, but Junhui wouldn’t call them close either. 

He feels his eyebrows scrunch of their own accord, even as he clicks the email. 

_[Sent 10:21pm, from: joshua_h@naver.com, to: fullmoonj@qq.com_

_Junhwi,_

_I’m so sorry to hear about Minghao. I know I’m in Korea right now, but if you ever need anything, feel free to call me, and I’ll pick up. If you need some of my sick days too, you can have them. Let me know if corporate tries to be an ass about anything and I’ll sort them out._

_Sending you my thoughts,_

_-Joshua]_

What?

Junhui’s fingers feels strangely nerveless as he picks up his phone, dialing Joshua’s personal number. Joshua picks up within seconds, some sort of evening television program going on in the background. “Junhwi?”

Emotion is a rising tide within his chest. He picks up the conversation halfway through where Joshua had left off, trusting him to keep up. “What do you mean by that?” 

“I’m sorry,” Joshua’s voice is devastatingly kind, but there’s a confused edge to it too. “Mean by what?”

“About Minghao, why are you sorry?” Junhui’s fingers tap his knees, in time with the rain above them.

There’s a pause from the other end of the line. Joshua’s voice falters, stutters. “Why… Oh no. I thought you already knew. I wouldn’t have sent that if I hadn’t…”

“Knew _what?”_ Junhui’s voice slips higher, snags like a fish hook into his chest. Tugs on something awful. 

Joshua takes a deep breath. Junhui hears it whistle across country lines, cross endless stretches of water to reach him. “I heard it on the news. Minghao’s ship went down somewhere in the Pacific. They don’t know if anyone survived.”

Junhui feels like he’s drowning. “What?”

“I’m so sorry, Junhwi.”

“That can’t be true,” Junhui says. By his side, Minnow has her claws out, like she senses his distress. Joshua pauses, and Junhui continues right over his silence. “Minghao called me just this morning, he was fine. He has to be fine.”

“Junhwi…” Joshua trails off, and Junhui has had enough. He hangs up the phone and puts his hands over his face, hiding his eyes. 

Minghao is fine. Junhui can remember just hours ago, his voice curling through the phone line, contemplative in the way that only studying deep water made him. He had promised to come back in just another week. He had made cooing sounds at Minnow when Junhui held the phone up to her face. He _can’t_ be—

Junhui takes a short breath, oxygen flooding his chest. He feels dizzy, fumbles the phone back up and punches in a number he knows by heart. 

No one picks up the other end of the line. Junhui takes another breath and tries again.

And again.

And again.

The rain continues falling, the phone keeps ringing, and neither one of them stop until morning.

\--

Junhui doesn’t sleep in his ( _their_ ) bedroom anymore. The sheets are too cold and the bed is too wide and the room is too quiet. Without Minghao, there’s nothing welcoming about it at all.

Instead, he sleeps on the couch, phone always near hand, waiting for a call. It’s not restful at all, and he wakes six nights out of seven gasping for air, unable to close his eyes again. Minnow sits on his chest and purrs, like she’s trying to drain the emotion out of his lungs, stop him from drowning. Junhui runs a hand down her back in the mornings, and wonders if the house has always felt this cold. 

Officially, Minghao isn’t dead, just missing. Reports put his ship down somewhere in the middle of the Pacific, but no one that Junhui talks to is willing to say if it’ll be found. Not a lot of people are willing to talk to Junhui about Minghao at all, actually.

He’s a widow at twenty six, the title carrying a plague of half-hearted well wishes with it. The third time Junhui opens his door to someone carrying a casserole, he slams it in their face, and sits on their bed for three hours, crying.

The tears are equal parts grief and rage and they unravel him into flesh and blood, just a man clutching his hair. Alone.

Minghao is just missing, but the entire world is acting like he’s dead. It makes Junhui _furious_ , the kind of emotion that howls like a hurricane. Minghao isn’t dead, and no matter how much their friends are determined to put his memory in the ground, Junhui refuses to play along. 

Minghao is going to come back. Junhui presses his wedding ring to his lips and repeats it to himself.

Minghao will come back. He has to.

\--

Yixing’s eyes are kind as he looks at Junhui, a handful of documents spread out between them. “We’ve put this off as long as we could, Junhui. I’m sorry, but we need to settle the matter of Minghao’s employment.”

“He’s still out there,” Junhui replies, smile fixed on his face. It feels more like a rictus grin than anything, but he persists. If he doesn’t smile, he’ll start crying again, and he doesn’t want Yixing to see that. Not when he’s trying to convince the other man not to give him Minghao’s death benefits. “You can’t settle anything while he’s alive.”

Yixing seems to take a breath, closing his eyes for a minute before opening them again. “Junhui, we cannot continue this forever. It’s been three months.”

Junhui slides the papers back to Yixing and takes a breath through clenched teeth. “Wait, just another week please. I know he’s going to come back.”

“He’s not—”

“Don’t say that!” Junhui stands as he says it, hands on the table. At this angle, Yixing is looking up at him, still calm. It doesn’t make Junhui feel better. If anything it makes him feel like he’s losing control of the situation, emotion too large for his body.

“Junhui,” Yixing says his name the same way everyone does nowadays: like they’re addressing a wounded animal. Out of all of the things about this that Junhui hates, that tone of voice is one of the worst. Yixing continues, looks him in the eye. “Minghao is _dead._ Stop hanging on to his ghost.”

The words fall between them like breaking glass, and Junhui steps back so abruptly his chair tips over. “Get out.” The words come out as a whisper, but Junhui knows Yixing hears. 

“This isn’t going to change, Junhui. You need to—”

“Get _out!_ ” Junhui shouts it this time, surprisingly them both. The tears he had been pushing back before threaten again. “Take your papers and get out. I won’t ask again.”

Yixing does so, sweeping them into a tidy pile and standing up. He pauses in the doorway to the living room, turning back to say, “I’m sorry, Junhui.”

Junhui doesn’t answer. A lot of people have told him they’re sorry. It doesn’t seem to help.

\--

A week later, Junhui is curled on the ocean cliffs, letting the breeze wash over his face. 

It’s unfairly sunny, light shattering off the waves beneath his feet. Sea birds call to each other, squabbling over fish left in the tidepools below. Junhui feels like an ink stain, his dark mood spread out to taint the day around him.

He’s been staring at the horizon for hours now, breath catching at every dot that rises over its edge. If he squints, each of them might be Minghao and his ship, returning to Junhui’s shores. 

It never is though. 

The sea breeze picks up briefly, wind brushing his face like an apology. Junhui closes his eyes, but the light still seeps through. Grief drags at his bones like a riptide, catching his feet out from beneath him. Taking him out to sea.

\--

The docks are warm this time of year, summer easing itself into autumn’s bed. Junhui tips his head back, sunlight pooling in the dips of his collarbones, tangling in his hair. He’s been out here for an hour, and yet he’s still cold. 

His lungs, his heart, all the places that sunlight can’t reach, are drowned in dark water. He’s been drowning for a long time now.

In front of him is a boat, just large enough to brave the ocean. And still farther out, is the ocean herself. She’s waiting for him. She has Minghao within her embrace and Junhui has never been a patient lover. He’s going to find his husband. 

Behind him is their house on the cliffs, given to a friend to watch for however long this takes. His job has been put on hold, Joshua’s no-nonsense voice bludgeoning their boss into accepting Junhui’s unpaid leave.

Junhui has no way to explain what he’s doing, really. Joshua had asked him, voice trailing off the edge of the question like an apology, why he believed Minghao was alive. And Junhui had no answer. Just a feeling. 

When they had first gotten married, Junhui had thought of it like attuning a compass, heart always pointing north, always home, always towards Minghao. Their friends had joked about it for a while, the way the two of them could always find each other in crowded rooms, without even looking. 

Eventually the novelty had worn off, and it had become just another facet of Minghao and Junhui’s relationship. Twin lighthouses, guiding each other home. 

Now, Junhui’s heart is leading him to the sea. He would go to the end of the earth for Minghao—into the water is nothing. He steps onto the boat, deck creaking beneath his feet.

Casting off is easy—Minghao taught him how to handle a boat, until Junhui could weather any storm. Junhui doesn’t love sailing the way Minghao does, but he’s passable. And he’s learned to love it in his own way. There’s a beauty in competence, in a boat working the way it should.

Just as he’s about to push away from the dock, a tiny shape hurtles itself onto his boat, scrabbling a little to get over the railing. It tumbles onto the deck and resolves itself into a bundle of calico fur and a disgruntled set of whiskers.

Junhui abandons his position by the stern and runs over, extending a hand towards Minnow. “What are you doing here, little fish?”

Minnow looks up at him and meows loudly, as if to chastise him. 

Junhui can’t quite help himself from smiling, small and a little wan, but real. “Couldn’t let me find him on my own, huh?”

Minnow butts her head against his palm and mrrps, a sound that Junhui takes as agreement. 

“Ok, come on then. Let’s go get your lifevest. I think it’s still in storage.”

When Junhui leaves the harbor, it’s with Minnow at the prow of his boat like a figurehead, head swaying to and fro to catch the wind. It’s almost like she’s searching for Minghao too.

\--

There's a dream Junhui has when he finally reaches open ocean, one that comes to him nearly every night.

He’s standing on Minghao’s ship, watching it turn over in the water. The whole thing is ridiculous: Junhui had never been on the research vessel for longer than an hour, and no matter how much he has wished so in recent weeks, he wasn’t there when Minghao disappeared either. No one knows what happened to the ship.

Still, the dream doesn’t bow to logic. So Junhui is there on the ship as it tips over, reaching out for Minghao’s hand. He manages to grab it too, right before they hit the water.

Minghao smiles at him ever as bubbles escape his lips and closes his eyes. The world becomes a shatterpoint of currents, the ocean reaching up to swallow them whole. 

Hand in hand they’re pummeled to the seafloor, so far down that light becomes a distant memory. And then, somewhere in that darkness, Minghao lets go.

Junhui wakes in a cold sweat every time, hands open, trying to touch something just out of reach. All that’s in sight though, is water. Water and the vast sky above him. 

Nights like that he sits out on the deck of his boat and watches the stars, wondering if somewhere out there, Minghao is doing the same thing.

\--

On the ocean, life takes on a different rhythm. Junhui gets used to eating smaller, more frequent meals, always ready to be back at the helm. He gets used to waking in the middle of the night to correct course, and to checking the weather forecast like it’s second nature. 

There’s nothing around him but open ocean for miles, the world reduced to a disk. Junhui is trapped within the horizon’s hoop. He’s be entirely alone too, if it wasn’t for Minnow. 

Over weeks, Junhui discovers the water has a language of its own. He learns it the same way he did Korean, takes vocabulary tests in currents, has conversations with weather patterns. He almost considers himself fluent too, right up until he encounters his first storm.

\--

_Never turn your back on the ocean._

It’s something Minghao used to say, whenever he taught Junhui about safety near the water. Never turn his back on the ocean, or else she would sweep him away just as easily as sand. The ocean had no mercy to give, only truths of water and wind and sky, presented without censure. She would not hesitate to drown a careless soul.

Junhui hadn’t been taking the clear weather for granted necessarily, but he is not as prepared for bad weather as he should have been. At the first hint of clouds on the horizon, he hustles Minnow into the cabin and closes the door on her plaintive meows. 

_Beloved, the ocean is all around me now. How am I supposed to keep from turning my back to her?_

Minghao doesn’t answer, and Junhui gets the boat ready to face the storm. Anything loose on deck gets strapped down and he puts on another layer of waterproof clothing beneath his lifevest. All too soon, waves are lashing his boat’s sides, some of them spilling over the deck to wash over his feet.

When the first big waves hits his boat, Junhui hangs on and sails the way Minghao taught him to, with one eye on the wind, one on the waves, and always one hand to the ropes. The craft shudders in the water and Junhui barely gets it turned in time to prevent it from tipping over. 

In the last few seconds he has before his entire focus is pulled away by sailing, Junhui spares a thought for Minghao. He would give anything for him to be by his side right now—not just to soothe the ache that has tenanted itself in Junhui’s bones. Minghao is one of the best sailors that Junhui knows, could handle this storm with ease. 

And then the world is dark waves and wind and Junhui loses track of everything that isn’t related to keeping himself alive.

\--

An unknowable amount of time later, Junhui slowly comes to the realization that the storm has passed. The sky above him is still dark, but it’s a red darkness now, the sky revealed from behind the clouds.

He slowly unclenches his hands from the various bits of rope and wood they had latched onto in order to steer. The wind continues to push him onwards, and Junhui tips his head into his hands, taking slow, deep breaths. 

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until the first tear drips off of his nose. It’s just all so much—the storm, Minghao’s absence, the exhaustion weighing on his bones like lead. It all piles up and leaves him alone on the deck of the boat, choking around sobs. 

This far out on the ocean, water is precious, and Junhui runs a hand over his face to try and stem his tears. It doesn’t work, and smears salt into his eyelids, only making the problem worse. 

Junhui closes his eyes. Salt water gusts over the ship, like the ocean is crying too. Waves lap the boat’s edge, like they’re beckoning him to jump in.

 _That's not fair_ , Junhui wants to yell. _You have him already. You can’t have me too._ But the ocean has never once answered his calls, and he knows better than to expect it to be kind. 

He opens his eyes and tips his head back, counts the stars appearing overhead like they’re blessings, as if he could simply pick the right one to wish on, and it would lead him back to Minghao, back to his home. Tears continue to drip down his face. He doesn’t bother to wipe them away.

\--

Junhui doesn’t like to think about how long it takes to get where Minghao was last seen. It’s too long. Still, it seems like he closes his eyes one day and opens them the next to find his GPS telling him that he’s made it. 

This stretch of ocean looks no different than any of the others, but Junhui knows it is where Minghao’s boat had disappeared. 

He has a map of the local currents, and some idea of where Minghao might have been sent, if he had gotten into a life raft. It’s the same information that the coast guard has, paired with a hundreth of the resources. 

It’s not that Junhui believes he’ll do a better job than the professionals who were searching these waters, it’s just… they stopped. They had other lost souls to save. He won’t. He doesn’t.

The difference is that Junhui knows Minghao is out there. Even if his feeling is wrong—a thought that haunts him whenever he stops to think too long—he has a duty. Junhui will return with his body, if nothing else. He will return Minghao’s body and give it the rest it deserves, for the work it did in life, carrying Minghao’s spirit.

But that’s a hypothetical that Junhui only thinks of in passing. Until proven otherwise, Minghao is alive.

He presses a hand to his heart, wedding band felt even through the loose linen of his shirt. There’s a tug there, pulling him onward. 

Across the horizon, Minghao is waiting.

Junhui isn’t going to give up.

\--

Junhui had a plan, originally. Not quite a grid search, but he had spent long nights plotting out how the ocean might have spirited Minghao away. He spends a week traveling towards where he thinks Minghao should have been swept, scanning the horizon for any sign of life. 

By the second week, the plan is lying shattered at his feet. He tries to keep to it, but as days continue to pass and he doesn’t find Minghao, he grows more and more desperate. He wanders the ocean according to her whims, scanning the horizon for signs of life.

Nothing.

No matter how long Junhui looks, there is nothing. The horizon remains as empty as it has for weeks. His heart still tugs him onward, but Junhui is starting to believe that it’s not Minghao. It’s just Junhui, lying to himself.

Joshua’s question has never seemed so loud. _How do you know he’s alive?_

_I don’t. I don’t. I don’t._

_I have to believe, instead. I have to believe, or this was all for nothing._

\--

“Give him back. Please.” Junhui wipes his face, staring up at the night sky. “He’s my husband too, you know.”

The ocean does not answer.

“I can share, you know. But he’s my husband too.”

For just a second, a breeze picks up, brushing cool fingers across his forehead. It starts to rain.

\--

He’s dreaming again, the ship tipping over, Minghao’s hand in his. Water. 

_I won’t let go._ Junhui tries to say this time, and maybe Minghao hears him, because his smile in return is brilliant. Even as they sink to the floor of the ocean—so very small under her inky waves—Minghao stays shining. 

Junhui doesn’t let go. 

Together, their feet settle into the silt and mud at the bottom of the ocean, and Junhui tips his forehead into Minghao’s, presses their lips together, as if he could say everything with his body that he can’t in words. 

Minghao kisses back like Junhui is oxygen, and Junhui holds him close, like he could brand this memory into his skin. A moment more, and then Minghao starts to fade. Junhui opens his eyes to see Minghao dissolving into water, face refracting into a sea current.

Right before he disappears completely, Minghao’s eyes tip upward to look at the surface far above. Junhui follows his gaze. Above him, is a star. It shines through the water, beckons to him with fingers of silver. 

Junhui keeps watching it, and slowly the star gets closer until he’s drowning in silver. The lights gets brighter and brighter until suddenly--

He wakes up. Minnow is laying half over his forehead, fur tickling his eyelids. The dream is fading, but one part of it burns in his mind’s eye. Silver light.

He’s spent enough time studying star charts by now to know where that particular star is located, and, well. It would be stupid to change course based upon this and nothing else but it’s better than anything he has now.

Junhui looks up and addresses Minnow’s fluffy stomach. “We’re changing course.”

Minnow meows. It almost sounds like approval.

\--

Junhui follows a star across the ocean, even if it sounds foolish when he says it to himself. He still does it though, angles his prow into the wind and keeps his eyes open. 

Nothing appears on the first day, nor the second. And then, on the third day, when Junhui is nearly ready to give up, he sees a spark on the horizon. 

A flare. 

Immediately, he turns his boat in that direction, hope like a high tide on his tongue. Slowly a shape resolves itself out of the haze of distance, light curving, sparkling. 

Junhui can barely breathe. 

And against all hope, against all the weeks he has spent at sea, when he gets closer, there is someone in the life raft. There are several people in fact, all hanging off the edge of the boat like they’re thinking of swimming to him, but only one of them matters. 

His hair is matted with salt water, his cheeks are sunken, and he has sores over his entire body, but Junhui would recognize him anywhere. His heart gives a tiny twinge before falling silent, finally content. 

It feels like the first real breath he’s drawn in months. “Minghao! It’s me!” His voice is clear and loud over the open water. 

The boats are nearly close enough to touch, and Junhui abandons his post at the helm to throw the liferaft a rope. Minghao coughs for a second and then looks up at him. Two of the other people grab the rope and draw the boats together. “You came.” There’s something fragile in his voice, not quite sure he can believe what’s in front of him. 

Junhui smiles, wrinkling the wind-roughened skin around his eyes. “Of course! Sorry for the wait, the ocean didn’t want to let you go.”

Minghao smiles back, though it looks like it hurts. “I hoped you would come.”

\--

Later, after Junhui has called the coast guard and reassured the other members of the lifeboat, after he has set course for home and given everyone food and water, after everyone settles down for the night and someone has been set to steer, Junhui and Minghao lie in Junhui’s bed. 

The bedroom was never very big to begin with, but it seems smaller with more people in it. There’s another person sleeping across from them in a hasty hammock, and another on the floor. Minghao is lying half on top of Junhui just to fit on the small bed.

He almost doesn’t hear Minghao’s question because of how quietly it’s said. Minghao whispers the words into Junhui’s collarbone like he’s asking for a secret. “How did you know where to find me?”

Junhui pauses. He thinks of the ocean, of dreams, of wishes on stars and on storms. “I listened to the water.”

“The water?”

Junhui hums, twisting his wedding ring around his finger. For a second it snags on his skin, salt sticking the two together. “The ocean loves you a lot, you know.”

Minghao’s breath is warm on Junhui’s collarbone, and he lifts himself up onto his elbows to look Junhui in the eyes. “Well, she’ll have to learn to share. You’re the one I married.”

A laugh escapes him without Junhui’s conscious consent. “That’s what I said, too.”

“Good.” Minghao settles down, close cropped hair tickling Junhui’s chin. (Junhui had cut it for him, hands gentle over the nape of Minghao’s neck, salt matted strands falling to the floor of the boat. He had tipped the clippings into the ocean after he was done, watched them float away on a stray current.) “Keep it that way.”

There’s a quiet thump as Minnow jumps up onto the bed, tucking herself into the space between Minghao and the wall, curling into a ball and purring. 

For the first time in months, Junhui allows himself to relax. He closes his eyes, but doesn’t go immediately to sleep, savoring his surroundings. On his chest is Minghao, to his side is Minnow, and outside, he can hear the sound of water. Slowly, the motion of the waves rocks him to sleep, warm and content. 

His last thought is that he can still smell salt water, hanging in the air like a quiet blessing.

**Author's Note:**

> we really spent 4k on this and minghao shows up for maybe 400 words, i'm so sorry about that. if you enjoyed this, i'd love it if you left a comment/kudos!
> 
> i'm on twitter/cc @lavenderim if you'd like to chat <33


End file.
